


Flying Solo

by alterai



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Civil War (Marvel), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alterai/pseuds/alterai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony takes a moment to regroup, because Steve wouldn't have wanted him to break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Solo

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to marinarusalka for beta-reading!

Tony took the armor out along an empty stretch of the coast, flying low enough to skim the surface of the water and occasionally trail a hand through the incoming waves.  It was rare that he got to do this – flying just for the sake of flying. Work or Avengers duty were usually prioritized, and lately there had been far more pressing issues to keep him away. The last time he could remember that he’d had a chance to come out to the coast and truly do nothing but just _look_ – well, Steve had been with him then, tagging along for the ride home after a mission. Tony had insisted that they take the long, scenic route home, if for no other reason than working off some of that post-fight adrenaline crash. Steve hadn't much needed the persuasion. Sometimes Tony thought the other man had enjoyed flying just as much as he did.

Tony felt the familiar twinge of pain twist inside him again, phantom memory lingering in the few times he’d gotten to take Steve out over the coast. Tony missed flying with him, missed the weight of the man at his side, missed glancing sideways and catching the occasional glimpses of exhilaration that Cap couldn't quite keep off his face.

He pulled up when he’d left the shoreline far behind, slowing down to a hover above the glittering surface of the sea, and lifted his faceplate back so he could take in the view. On days like this when the water was still and calm – an unbroken expanse of blue stretching out far across the horizon – the ocean reminded him, more than ever, of Steve. The brilliant shimmering blue of the seas that, when the light hit it at the right angle, reflected the color of Steve’s uniform. And the color of his eyes. The water stretched out in front of him – miles of ocean in all directions, yet still it paled in comparison to the man himself.

And Steve – Steve was out there somewhere now, buried underneath all this wild beauty. Inhaling sharply, he turned his head to face the setting sun, letting the warm rays hit his face and willing it to chase away the bitingly cold ache inside him.

Tony swallowed past the lump in his throat as he searched for the memories that he usually kept locked away in a corner of his mind. These, these were the happy ones. These, he kept for moments like this, when that pain in his chest got too much to bear, when everything started to fade away into an empty echo and he was starting to lose sight of anything that even remotely resembled a future. He thought if he could just see that blue one more time, just to remember…though it was always a gamble sometimes, whether remembering hurt more than it helped. But every once in a while, the memories were just enough to ease, if ever so slightly, that strangled knot in his chest that had become a constant in the last months. If he could lose himself in them enough to forget about everything else.

It was the little things mostly. Steve bringing him coffee when he was absorbed in a project down in the lab. Late-night conversations in the library long after the rest of the mansion had fallen silent, where they chatted about nothing in particular and just soaked up time until dawn peeked in through the windows. The way Steve had held him sometimes as they slept, tight like he never wanted to let go.

A single tear trickled down his cheek and Tony wiped it away angrily. Breaking down was not the sort of luxury he could afford right now. No matter how much he told himself that he’d do anything, anything at all, to turn back time for a chance to redo it all, that it wasn't worth it, at the end of the day he still had to live with the consequences. And right now that was a world without Steve.

 _Finish this._ It was what Steve would say, if he was here. He could almost hear it, Steve’s voice in his ears, infused with the sort of quiet determination that had always given Tony the strength to keep fighting.

And Tony would. Would see this through for him. Even though he’d thought about it often, about how easy it would be to just end things, about leaving his screw-ups behind for other people to fix and just follow Steve down into the black. It would also be a cowardly thing for him to choose to do, an easy escape that he didn't deserve, and an insult to Steve’s memory. He couldn't back out of this mess now, when he’d helped to create it in the first place.

He cast a last look over the vast stretch of ocean, then boosted up his thrusters in preparation to head back towards the shore. But a sudden thought stopped him, and he let himself drop back down to an unsteady hover just barely above the water.

“Steve, you knew that I loved you. You knew that, right?” The wind scattered his whispered words. Somewhere inside him was the deep, numbing fear that he hadn't said it enough when Steve was alive.

He didn't have an answer, but was it asking too much to hope that, maybe, his hushed little declarations of love – the ones he’d not shared with anyone else before him, painstakingly set aside just for Steve, always only for Steve – had somehow found a way to survive the war and, despite their disagreements, had held through to the end? That Steve would've held onto that, whatever else he might have thought of Tony? He was allowed a little hope, wasn't he?

“Steve?” He whispered again, listening to the gentle swell of waves in the distance and waited for an answer that just wouldn't come.

Tony stared out at the mesmerizing blue for a while longer before he carefully began to put the memories away again, one by one. 

He looped through the air a few times as he headed back to shore. Wide, spiraling loops, the jet boots leaving thin vapor trails in the sky. It was his way of saying goodbye, even if he couldn't quite bring himself to say it out loud.


End file.
